Victimisation
by speakingwordsofwisdom
Summary: "You think you might have lost your old, wouldn't-hurt-a-fly self. Because you've actually learnt that yes, in the case of Brittany, you'd hurt pretty much anyone" Explanation piece/ freshman year. Brittana, and mention of Faberritana friendship.


**A/N Ok, i'm sorry for the long absence. But...i cannot even explain how awful a levels were, except to say that by the end, i was almost prescribed anti-depressants. Luckily, thats all over now. I got my A* and 3 A's by sweating blood, but it worked. Soon, ill be at university =) Anyway, i realised i missed writing fanfics, so i did this today.**

**I basically was having trouble reconciling BitchSantana with how i see her in my head, and had to think it through: how could someone like Brittany fall in love with someone like Santana unless there was more to Santana than Glee shows us? Also i like the idea of faberittana being friends to begin with, so i had to find a way to reconcile this idea with the animosity between Santana and Rachel as well.**

**Please read and review!**

You never hated anyone to begin with, you know.

Fuck what everyone else says, you don't hate for no reason.

No, your default setting is not "bitchy and borderline violent", thank you very much, and your getting pretty fucking sick of denying it, actually.

Why the fuck would you randomly decide to hate on anyone? For fucks sake!

No, you did not victimise anyone (why do they seem to like that word so much?), you never victimised anyone.

No! No, no you didn't. What, they think some bitchy (but usually pretty close to the truth, actually, no matter what people like to tell themselves) asides here and there, and occasional threats constitute victimisation?

Victimise implies without reason, victimise implies you had a choice, victimise implies the absolute pure-white innocence of one person, and the complete opposite of the other (you, in this case, you suppose).

The idea of any those losers they're referring to being innocent actually makes you want to laugh. Who's ever as innocent as they like to make out?

Not you, you're under no delusions there, and neither is anybody else, but then, neither are the underclassmen on the receiving end of your razor-sharp tongue. You're not as black-and-white as anybody thinks, and you know that in all honesty, their real resentment springs not from the sting of the comments they've endured from you, but from the fact that they are on the receiving end.

Give anyone at McKinely High a decent chance, and in time, they'll act exactly the same way that you and the cheerio's and the football team act right now.

Theres only one pure-innocent person at McKinley. Theyre the only person who could really be victimised. They are also, by interesting coincidence, not only the one person at McKinely whom you never have or would ever dream of hurting, but also the one person who you have ensured will never BE hurt... not ever.

No, no you're not being fucking melodramatic. You're not now, and you weren't being melodramatic two years ago either

September, two weeks into freshman year, and you're late back from your holiday visiting your relatives in Puerto Rica. Late beginning McKinely, too, but that's no big deal. Rachel and Britt will fill you in on everything...right?

You may have drifted apart a little- Rachel getting more and more involved with her drama and dance and singing classes, closer and closer to her out-of-school friends, and less interested in school games and school gossip, and Quinn becoming more and more devout, more eager to please her parents and therefore obligated to divide up her time between church events and actual church services- but you and Britt are just as close as ever, and the four of you are still friends, of course you're still friends...just, maybe, now you're the kind of friends who don't see each other all the time (Quinn is going to Sacred Heart instead of McKinley, and sometimes you wonder if this distancing is just as a result of this, instead of something deeper and more scarily permanent).

But...it's ok. Because the three of you will soon be together at McKinely, and Britt will catch you up on the gossip, and Rachel will fill you in on the teachers and the classes, and they'll both fill you in on the other kids, and everything will be fine. Just like always.

Except...that isn't how it happens.

How it happens is going over to Britt's house on Sunday night as soon as you get back home, so she can catch you up on the need-to-know of high school, and finding Brittany, YOUR Brittany, your sunny, smiling, bouncy Brittany in a flood of tears because she can't bear the thought of anyone throwing drinks at you, accidently-on-purpose pushing your books out of your hands or themselves into you, stealing your pens, your books, your bag.

She doesn't want to have to watch the entire class snicker whenever you open your mouth, to whisper about you behind your back and pass notes about you across the room. She doesn't want you to have to feel like you don't have a friend in the entire school.

It's only as you sit together on the edge of her bed, Brittany clinging onto you and crying, and you trying to calm her down by saying "But Britt, why would anyone do any of that stuff to me?" (because nothing like that has ever happened to you, to any of you, and to be honest, it never even crossed your mind that anything like that ever COULD) that you feel something horrible and cold settle in your stomach and you have to ask "Britt...has anyone been doing any of that stuff to YOU?".

And maybe the worst thing...that it's nearly impossible to tell who is more surprised: you, that Brittany has been living through this for the two weeks that you've been away, or Brittany, that anyone would be surprised on her behalf.

Because two weeks is a long time in Brittany-land, long enough for the bullying to have become, in her mind, and in that of everyone else at McKinely High, an established and unchangeable part of daily life: for placid, accepting Brittany, the possibility of change is long gone, and while she is able to accept that her lot is now to be the outcast, it is not a part of her nature for her to believe that this sad existence should become your lot in life too.

There's anger and confusion and a deep, deep sadness in you now, and all fight for dominance as tears prick your eyes, and your hands tremble with strange fury, and your mind buzzes with questions (Why Brittany, what is wrong with these people, why the fuck aren't the teachers doing anything about this?), and the first to rise up is: "Britt, is this happening to all the freshmen?"

A shake of the head, more tears.

"Just you?"

A nod.

"Rachel?"

A shake of the head.

"Just...you?"

A nod.

"What has...where's Rachel been for the last two weeks?"

A shrug.

"You haven't seen her?"

She shakes her head. "Just...a bit. Like in the halls and stuff."

"Hasn't she been doing anything to..I don't know, help or whatever?"

"N-not really..."

"WHAT?" You practically leap off the bed, and Britt flinches beside you. Forcing yourself to calm down, you sink back beside her on the bed and put your arms around her. "I'm sorry, B. Not mad at you. Just...mad at Rachel, i think"

"Why, San?"

The truly painful thing is her sincerity: in Brittany-land, it's perfectly reasonable to care more about your friends than you do about yourself, and her love for Rachel makes her care more about Rachel's overall wellbeing than about demanding any show of loyalty from her...

"Because..." Words fail.

"But..." blinking big blue eyes "then SHE might get slushied too, San! I don't want Rachel to get slushied... Even if I have to be..."

It's this moment, looking at her, knowing you're also looking at one of the sweetest, more pure people in the world, that makes you determined to fix this.

You will not let the fucked up cruelty of high school politics crush the happiness out of your best friend, you won't let them take away the innocence that Brittany has somehow held onto.

And, even as you do everything in your power to make her forget about this, make her forget the world was ever anything but a place of sunshine and happiness, you yourself will, conversely, make sure you never forget.

You won't forget the faceless hoards of students who were willing to make destroying Brittany's happiness their new fun. You won't let yourself forget that all that stands between Brittany and the world of cruelty is you. You won't ever stop protecting her.

Most of all, you won't forgive them, any of them. And most especially you won't forgive Ra-...you won't forgive Berry.

A part of you reminds you that you still actually like Rachel, that you can sort of understand why she might have been frightened by the wolf pack of students...but forgiving her is forgiving her abandoning your Brittany in your absence...and however much you like Rachel, you love Brittany more.

Brittany won't ever ask for revenge...but you will make sure you give it anyway. The reason she won't ask for revenge is the same reason that makes you all the thirstier for it.

If bullying a normal person is bad, then bullying a person like Brittany- who will always try to see the good in people, who has none of the defences the rest of mankind is born with- is a million times worse.

By the end of the week, a new order has been restored to McKinley. Brittany is happy again, after you made it clear that anyone who treated Brittany anything less than courteously would suffer as a result. Rachel...is not so happy, but you're stopping yourself from caring.

Oh, and one other thing. You think you might also have lost your old, wouldn't-hurt-a-fly self.

Because you've actually learnt that yes, in the case of Brittany, you'd hurt pretty much anyone.


End file.
